With reckless abandon big bluff Bill Witt began to sing:
"It's a long way to Tipperary, It's a long way to go. It's a long way—-"
The song was interrupted by a harsh grating sound—-the crashing of steel against steel—-and then the Dewey shuddered from stem to stern as though it had run suddenly against a stone wall.
Hurled from his feet by the fearful impact Jack sprawled on the steel floor of the torpedo room. Ted, standing close by his chum, clutched at one of the reserve torpedoes hanging in the rack in time to prevent himself falling.
For a moment the Dewey appeared to be going down by the stern, with her bow inclined upward at an angle of forty-five degrees. Above all the din and confusion could be heard the roar of a terrific explosion outside. The little submersible was caught in the convulsion of the sea until it seemed her seams would be rent and her crew engulfed.
From the engine room Chief Engineer Blaine and his men retreated amidships declaring that the submarine had been dealt a powerful blow directly aft the conning tower on her starboard beam.
"Any plates leaking?" asked Lieutenant McClure quietly.
"Not that we can notice, sir," replied Blame. "It appears as though the nose of that Prussian scraped along our deck line abaft the conning tower."
At any moment the steel plates were likely to cave in under the strain and the submarine be inundated.
"Stand by ready for the emergency valve!" shouted Lieutenant McClure.